‘QUACK AND TRACK’: THE INTERNATIONAL IMPACT OF U.S. HORSE SLAUGHTER BAN

By Bob Silbernagel

A Toronto restaurant plans to reintroduce horse meat to its menu Thursday, according to this article, in combination with duck meat. The entre will be called 'Quack and Track.'

Horse meat was dropped from the menu last year, according to the story in the (Toronto) Star.com, because of news reports that many of the horses slaughtered for meat in Canada came from the United States after long and grueling and often cruel truck rides. And there were concerns about whether some of the meat was safe for humans to eat.

The U.S. General Accounting Office concluded last year that the de facto ban on horse slaughter in this country simply pushed horses to Mexico and Canada, often for those terrible truck rides mentioned above. The ban was lifted in a Deparment of Agriculture funding bill late last year, although no slaughter plants have reopened in the U.S. as of yet.

But the restaurant's owner in this story said he believes that will occur and will again make horse meat more suitable as restaurant fare.